The Seattle Weekly published a story this week about the pending merger between its parent chain company, VVM, and the larger media chain, New Times. At a first glance, the Weekly story seemed pretty straightforward. They reported the basics (New Times and its investment bankers, Alta, will control the boardwhile the Weekly’s parent, VVM and its investment bankers, will have a minority ownership of the company.)

Weirdly, though, rather than asking the front-and-center question for its readersWhat does it mean for the Seattle Weekly that the New Times 11-paper chain may take them over?the only issue the the Weekly story raised about the deal focused on … the Stranger. They wrote: “In Seattle, aggressive tactics by a merged company controlled by New Times could be trouble for the Stranger, the smaller, locally controlled weekly here.” Even weirder, they don’t bother to answer that burning question.

Well, I’m happy to take a stab at it. For starters, we’ve been here before. The Weekly was bought out by a larger company in 1997 (Stern’s Village Voice). The result? The “endangered” Stranger grew and grew and became more relevant while the Weekly started its slip. (Note: Before that buy-out, The Weekly was on average per week 37 pages bigger than the Stranger. By 2000, three years later, the Weekly was on average per week only 10 pages bigger than the Stranger. ) At that point, again in 2000, the Weekly got bought out a second time. Stern’s Village Voice company, including Seattle Weekly, was swallowed by an even bigger fish, VVM, and its investment bankers including Goldman Sachs and Weiss and Peck & Greer. (Goldman Sachs is a huge contributor to George W. Bush, by the way.) The result? The “endangered” Stranger grew and grew some more and the Seattle Weekly continued its decline. Today, the Weekly is on average per week 7 pages smaller than the Stranger. Hey, check out this week when the city’s biggest community event, Bumbershoot, gave way to a 156-page Stranger and a 112-page Seattle Weekly.

So, it seems to me that the locally-owned Stranger isn’t going to suffer when another bigger fish gobbles up the Weekly and tries to prop them up.

The issue the Weekly should be raising for its readers about the pending merger isn’t what the buy-out means for the Stranger, but what it means for Seattle Weekly. New Times is famous for coming in and cleaning house. A merger with New Times spells more trouble for current Weekly staffers than it does for the locally-owned Stranger.

Here’s a more insightful story about the pending merger.